Cebu’s growing business process outsourcing industry continues to attract more foreign companies and generate more jobs.
Alorica, a US-based outsourcing company to expand in Cebu, aims to hire at least 1,500 people to man its newly opened delivery center here.
Alorica officials led by its chief executive officer and founder Andy Lee said they see Cebu as a place to further grow their business along with their five centers in Luzon — two in Makati and one each in Batangas, Pasig City and Quezon City.
“We see Cebu as our newest opportunity in partnership with our client, team and the community. There is an amazing number of qualified people in the community and I can’t imagine that we can’t be successful here,” said Lee.

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MANILA, Philippines - The country's largest business process outsourcing group wants to double jobs in the sector to 1.3 million in the next 5 years, a third of which will be in cities outside Metro Manila.

The government agrees, saying areas away from Manila are becoming increasingly attractive to foreign BPO investors, given rising labor costs in Manila and other key Asian cities.

A joint study by the Business Processing Association of the Philippines and the Department of Science and Technology showed Davao City, Sta. Rosa in Laguna and Bacolod City as the top 3 BPO locations among 34 domestic locations.

The supply of talent was the main determinant for a location's suitability for hosting IT-BPO operations. These cities, which are located in the provinces, are seen to ease the congestion in well-established IT-BPO hubs.

"We're making inroads in making sure that we grow the next wave cities," Benedict Hernandez, CEO of BPAP, said. "What took us ten years to build, we can create in 5 years. That's 1.3 million jobs."

Yu said there are more employees working for knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) companies in Cebu doing higher level work like accounting, research, medical coding, medical billing, and computer programming than those working in call centers.

“Based on our last data, we have 52 companies into KPO hiring 45,000 people out of the 75,000 direct employment in outsourcing companies. This leaves only 30,000 people working in call centers now,” said Yu.

He added that at least eight American outsourcing companies have confirmed plans to set up offices in Cebu since January.

This developed despite fears of the adverse effects to the Philippines of a pending anti-outsourcing bill pending in the United States Congress and supported by US President Barack Obama.

Yu said that even with the US protectionist stance, Cebu is being visited by many BPO firms interested to open offices here.

“In the past, we only got one to two visits every month. I have already met and got confirmations from eight companies within the first two months of this year,” Yu said.

“This is what I have been saying. The bill will never slow down our outsourcing industry but will instead encourage more. Outsourcing is today’s reality if you want to be a globally competitive company,” he said.

He said these companies will need 4,000 and 5,000 employees to man their offices.

“Companies like EXL, HCCA, United Health Care, Promet and Talleco have already confirmed that they will open offices here. Ironically, most of these are American companies,” said Yu.

“These are mostly higher-end outsourcing services that will help provide opportunities for our graduates especially the nurses who can work as medical coders because the company will need people who have knowledge in the medical science,” said Yu.

The outsourcing industry has enjoyed a boom since 2004 in Cebu, starting with call centers that relied on a large pool of young, English-speaking college graduates.

Yu said he expects more non-voice companies to come to Cebu this year because of the availability of capable manpower.

“Cebu will continue to be an attractive destination for these companies. To ensure that we sustain that, we build capability by making sure the three critical areas are taken care of, he said.

He said these are hardware or the infrastructure, software or the business environment, and the “peopleware” or a sustained supply of appropriate manpower.

Cebu City was ranked the no. 1 “emerging global outsourcing destination” among 50 top sites worldwide in a 2009 2009 survey by Tholons, an international consultancy firm.

It was the second year Cebu City received this rating based on criteria of scale and quality of workforce, infrastructure, business catalyst, risk profile, cost and quality of life.

Following Cebu in second and third places were cities of Shanghai and Beijing.
Several industry experts said the Philippines has already overtaken India as the BPO capital of the world.